The story of Narek. Bulgarian, Armenian or stateless, he is now in a detention centre for irregular migrants!

Narek arrives in Bulgaria when he is 6 months old with his mother and spends his entire life in Bulgaria. He is now 23 years old. His native language is Bulgarian, he graduated from a Bulgarian school and Bulgaria is the only country he considers his home. He is Bulgarian by all natural laws, but in the eyes of the law, he is residing illegally in Bulgaria. All his life, in all documents issued by the Bulgarian authorities, he has been regarded as a stateless person. The Bulgarian authorities are very well acquainted with his tireless dedication to pursue legal status to reside in Bulgaria.

A day before Easter he was stopped for a random police check, but because he didn’t posses ID and although he had an ongoing court case for his residence status he was detained in the Busmantsi detention centre on the grounds that his identity was not established. He is now facing deportation to Armenia, a country, whose embassy in Sofia has issued a document stating that in Armenia there isn’t any record of his existence.

Imagine your life crumble in a day! A day in which you were planning Easter celebrations with your family in the country where you have lived your entire life and at the end of the day you ended up in a detention centre for the purpose of deportation.